Emails from a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request reveal that Jefferson County Commissioner Lesley Dahlkemper recruited Evergreen Fire Rescue Chief Mike Weege to investigate the funding sources of a local nonprofit group focusing on forest protection.

The October 3, 2024 email from Chief Weege to Dahlkemper reads, “Very good to see you yesterday morning. Some information you asked about yesterday is below…Look at Ben & Jerry’s site they state that their average grant is $20,000 but not anything specific to this.”

Weege’s message includes an email forwarded from Jason Puffett, Division Chief of Wildland, that includes an announcement from the conservation group, Eco-Integrity Alliance, about a foundation grant they received.

The email (including screenshots) are part of Forest Fire Malfeasance (ForestFireMalfeasance.org), a recently released report from Eco-Integrity Alliance exposing a Colorado government coverup of peer-reviewed science and deliberate deception of media and the public to force through taxpayer-funded logging of public lands in the name of “wildfire fuel reduction.”

Hundreds of emails from a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request show indisputable evidence of Jefferson County Colorado Commissioners and Jefferson County Open Space staff colluding with 23 government officials, land management agencies, logging industry trade groups, NGOs, a university, a fire department, and a government-funded “collaborative” on an orchestrated disinformation campaign to push through thousands of acres of controversial “fuel reduction” logging (including clearcutting and removal of trees up to 211 years old) in Colorado public forests.

At a public “town hall” in Evergreen in February 2023, Commissioner Dahlkemper falsely told a small group of citizens in attendance and hundreds more via livestream that “there are no old growth 125 year plus trees that have been cut down” in Open Space parks, despite photographs of dozens of such logged trees up to 129-years old on the table in front of her taken by Eco-Integrity Alliance. Since then photographs (including a front page story in the Denver Post) have emerged of Jefferson County cutting old-growth trees up to 211 years old, which Jefferson County Open Space still publicly denies.

Polite emails sent from Eco-Integrity Alliance to Commissioner Dahlkemper, Chief Weege, and Jason Puffett asking why a local government would be interested in the funding of a grassroots citizen group have gone ignored.

The mission of Evergreen Fire Rescue is to “Protect life, property, and the environment through prevention, preparedness, education and emergency response.”